Tuesday, 2 November 2010

Backdated - US GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS 2010

I said I wouldn't analyse the Gubernatorial Elections, but here I am. There are several reasons:

The Gubernatorial Elections will determine the bias of the next ten years of United States Politics,

There is a little more to this than just whoever wins the most Governorships, and

I REALLY like the word Gubernatorial.

So,
there are 39 Governors to be elected today (plus several Lieutenant
Governors), including Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 38 of these
elections are traditionally scheduled for the midterms, the exception
being Utah, which constitutionally requires a special election due to
unusual circumstances. This leaves 13 states and four territories with
carry-over Governors.

In addition to the 36 states and two
territories that hold their Gubernatorial elections at the midterm,
there are 11 states and two territories that hold Gubernatorial
Elections in conjunction with the US Presidential Elections. Utah is
normally one of these, as are New Hampshire and Vermont, but with
two-year terms these latter occur at every Presidential and Midterm
election. The remaining 9 Governors elected in 2008 to remain in power
until 2012 are:
Delaware - Democrat
Indiana - Republican
Missouri - Democrat
Montana - Democrat
North Carolina - Democrat
North Dakota - Republican
Washington - Democrat
West Virginia - Democrat
American Samoa - Democrat
Puerto Rico - Republican

The
remaining fives states and The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands are therefore elected in the other two years, the “off-years”.
In 2007, these were:
Kentucky - Democrat
Louisiana - Republican
Mississippi - Republican

Providing
predictions for all of these would require a lot of research, and by
the time I had formulated them, the elections would probably be over.
However, history has traditionally resulted in more Republicans in the
South, and more Democrats in the North. However, we are only interested
in their impact of future elections through Gerrymandering, so lets
first consider the nature of this process.

Gerrymandering
is the act of realigning the boundaries of electoral districts to skew
or manipulate the voting outcome. Because the United States Constitution
demands that Congressional Districts be based on the latest population
figures, the government conducts a census every ten years – including
this year, 2010. After the 2010 census, Congressional districts may need
to be re-sized, added or removed, and the State Governors will play
some role in this.

To give an example of Gerrymandering,
consider a small state (in terms of population, at least), like Idaho.
Idaho has two congressional districts at present. Now imagine 60% of the
population are traditionally voters for party A, with party B gathering
the remaining 40%. But, imagine that most of Party B's supporters are
city dwellers, while Party A does best among the country folk. Now
finally imagine, as in Idaho, the majority of the big cities – Boise,
Meridian, Pocatello, Nampa, Idaho Falls, Caldwell, Twin Falls etc. lie
in the southern, industrial half of the state, while the north is
largely rural.

If party A is in power, then the ideal
boundary line would run more or less vertically through the state,
making each half more or less representational of the whole state. Party
A is likely to win both seats, with about 60% support in the North of
each versus roughly 40% opposition in the south.

If,
however, Party B was in power at the time of drawing the borders, they
might opt for a horizontal divide. This places the rural, northern seat
firmly in the hands of Party A, perhaps receiving 90% of the vote, but
all of this avid support is wasted in the safe seat. In the southern
seat, however, the city-dwellers dominate and Party B is likely to win.
In short, a vertical divide will give A two seats, while a Horizontal
divide will give one seat to each party. This, effectively, is
Gerrymandering, except rarely are the borders as clear a straight lines.
In some cases, the Gerrymandering can occur to such an extent that
seats curl up around eachother in strange contorted positions to
maximise the dominant party's wins whilst segregating powerful areas of
opposition or diluting minority groups.

However, this is
where the Gubernatorial Elections come down to more than the number of
seat won. Whoever wins the most populous states will have far better
Gerrymandering opportunities than anyone else, and winners of marginal
states will find the process far more effective than solid Republican or
Democrat states where most of the votes will go one way, regardless of
borders, and Gerrymandering will scrape together or dissolve only a
couple of districts that vote otherwise.

Based on population and this years marginal seat distribution, the top states to watch are:
California
(53 Congressional Districts at present, with one currently “Likely” for
each party, which could be realigned to become a tossup or even go the
other way)
Texas (32 Congressional Districts)
New York (29
Congressional Districts including three “Likely” Republican, one
“likely” Democrat and one Tossup which could be strengthened or weakened
as desired)
Florida (25 Congressional Districts )
Pennsylvania (19 Congressional Districts with four Republican and one Democrat “Likely”s )
Illinois (19 Congressional Districts with two Republican and one Democrat “Likely”)
Ohio (18 Congressional Districts with two Republican “Likely”s and a Tossup)
Michigan (15 Congressional Districts )
Virginia (11 Congressional Districts, two “Likely”s for either Party)

In
addition to this, the Parties will want to dominate the most marginal
states. A map of how marginal a state is can be found at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/PurpleNation.PNG
This
places a high premium on the states of Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, Florida
and New Hampshire, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia and
West Virginia. Factoring in the previous list of desirable seats, it is
apparent that Florida, Ohio and Virginia are highly desirable for both
parties, along with the ridiculously populous California, Texas and New
York. The following offers a brief analysis of each state:

Naturally,
with the pro-Republican swing across America, we would expect the
Republicans to gain many states. They also look set to gain many of the
key states, and those the Democrats do win (New York and California in
particular) are only held because they are so solidly pro-Democrat that
the maximum possible Gerrymandering advantage has already been achieved.

It
is difficult to say what impact this will have on Obama's attempt at a
Second term, but I would predict the next decade to bode well for
Republican Presidential Nominees. If Obama gets a second term and Palin
is not the best candidate for the Republican party, I would expect a
strong, two-term Republican President to dominated from 2016 to 2024.

If
Obama does not get a second term and Palin is still not the best
candidate for the Republican party, I would expect a strong, two-term
Republican President to dominated from 2012 to 2020 and another
Republican for the 2020-2024 term before the next census is completed.

If
in either case Palin is the best candidate the Republicans can muster,
then they just aren't trying, and it is impossible to call.